Carter Beard

Carter Lee Beard Jr. (Born May 4, 1965) is an American businessman and the President and CEO of Annin Flagmakers, a major US flag manufacturer and distributor.

Carter Beard was born in Essex Fells, New Jersey, to Carter Lee Beard Sr. and Ann Rutherford Beard. He graduated from Essex Fells Elementary School in 1977 and West Essex High School in 1983. He has one sister, Kendra Beard Graham (8-4-1963).

Beard married Maria Lourdes Lao in 2001 and they have two children. They live in northern NJ and are members of the Beacon Hill Club where they stay active playing ice hockey and tennis. Beard helps with his son’s hockey program and coaches baseball, soccer and basketball for his town recreation program.

Beard received his undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Richmond in 1987. After graduation he worked in Boston, first managing an Annin dealer, The Flag Center, and later working for Putnam Mutual Funds in broker/dealer service. He joined Annin Flagmakers in 1989. He worked for two years in the factories fixing sewing machines, running material slitters, and supervising sewing departments. He then spent three years in the corporate office supervising the Custom and Costing departments. This entailed quoting both custom work and government bids and processing the orders through to fulfillment. Mr. Beard subsequently returned to graduate school in 1994 and received his MBA from Duke University in 1996 with a concentration in operations and finance.

Beard returned to Annin Flagmakers in July 1996 and worked as Manager of Engineering. His primary concentration was process reengineering. He and his team redesigned the distribution process from the front end customer service/order entry process to the back-end picking/packing and shipping process to allow same day shipping of stock merchandise. He also implemented an NT corporate-wide PC WAN to allow desktop email and mainframe connectivity using an internal and external team of specialists. He was part of the management team that acquired Dettra Flag Co. and consolidated operations from six manufacturing plants, three distribution centers and two headquarters facilities down to four manufacturing plants, two distribution centers and one headquarters.

In May 1999, Beard was appointed Vice President of Manufacturing. In this role, the four main manufacturing plants and MIS reported to him. He concentrated on converting the operations to a capacity loading system using labor as the driver. In addition, he and his team opened a new mass merchant manufacturing and distribution center in Coshocton, Ohio in 2001 and added a 50,000 sq/ft distribution addition in 2004. In 2003, he co-led the selection process and implementation team for SAP ERP software to run Annin Flagmakers. He managed the build process of a 100,000 sq/ft addition to the South Boston, VA facility and, with his team, consolidated the Oaks, PA Manufacturing facility into the facility. He led a cross-functional team that converted most US/State/Foreign flag sewing in Ohio and South Boston to team-based unit production cellular sewing modules. He enabled the move in South Boston from traditional screen printing to high-speed digital printing equipment.

In 2006, Beard was appointed Vice President of Operations at Annin Flagmakers. In this role, the manufacturing plants continued to report to him as well as the purchasing and planning department. He has since spearheaded a project to dye nylon fabric in-house after buying the greige fabrics directly from the weaver. In addition, Annin now commission dyes polyester fabrics for US flags and buys the fabric directly from the weaver. He was part of the team that acquired D&P Embroidery and has worked with the management to modernize and streamline the processes there.

In 2010, Annin purchased FlagZone in Gilbertsville, PA. FlagZone is a full service wholesaler that sells through a network of independent flag dealers and through mass market retail chains. FlagZone is run independently from Annin Flagmakers with separate manufacturing, distribution and corporate offices. Dan Ziegler is President of FlagZone.

On January 1, 2011 Beard became the President and CEO of Annin Flagmakers.

Beard is participating in the OPM Program at Harvard Business School from 2013-2015. His class has 180 presidents from companies around the world. There are over 35 countries represented in the class.